Allegations
by Orpah
Summary: Iceland is taken away from his brother, and Denmark is left to pick up the pieces. AU


I wanted to just tap out on the keys until something good came out, so here's a bit for you to enjoy! You be the judge of whether it's good or not.

AU.

Ari = Iceland

Matthias = Denmark

Aage = Norway

I don't own Hetalia! end/AN/

Blood dribbled down his nose, getting in his mouth and giving him that weird, deep red taste that blood always seemed to have.

"Dammit, Ari, what the hell? Didn't I just tell you not to go and get in anymore fights?" Matthias dabbed at his nose with a t-shirt, then gave up at wiping the blood and just held the t-shirt there.

Ari breathed heavily through his mouth. He tried to tilt his head back to give Matthias that soulless stare he was known for. "I'm just a bad kid. Send me back to Aage, and get me off your hands."

Matthias scowled at him as he forced him to tilt his face downwards. "Come on, you'll drown if he keep staring at me like that. And you _know_ why I can't send you back. So stop it, now." He pushed him along towards the kitchen.

Instead, however, Ari tried to dig his feet into the carpet and pull out of Matthias' grip. "I'm not a baby! I can take care of it myself!"

"Oh yeah? What're you going to do if your nose is broken, smart guy?" None too gently, Matthias seized Ari's shoulder and dragged him along. Once he got him into the kitchen, he tucked Ari's hands against the t-shirt. "Hold that there. Come on, now."

Ari did as he was told grudgingly. "You suck at this. This is a dirty t-shirt, isn't it?"

"It's called improvising, Ari. All the masters at life do it," Matthias said, opening his freezer and looking for an ice pack.

"It's called being sloppy. And guess what, all the losers at life do it." Ari couldn't see Matthias' expression, because he had to keep his head down, but he felt like he'd at least given as good as he got.

Matthias let out a sigh. "You know what losers do? Losers get into fights."

Anger churned in Ari's gut. Matthias had no idea what he was talking about. So Ari muttered, "I hate it here."

"The smell's bad, but you'll adapt." Matthias turned around and put the ice pack on Ari's nose. Then he directed him towards the living room. He hoped that the kid would lighten up, but considering the circumstances, it didn't seem likely.

It had been a chilly day when a wet-faced Ari had shown up on his doorstep, a bag holding everything he held dear and a tall, somber-faced man behind him. He'd seemed dazed, like someone in shock. He hadn't said a word, instead shuffling in the house while the man from the agency explained the situation.

Ari needed a place to stay while things were resolved. Matthias was the only family listed, as dubious as the claim seemed. And the agency was all for a familiar atmosphere for children like Ari.

Matthias had said yes, because he owed so much to Aage, Ari's elder brother. If he'd known how Ari would be, would he have said yes so readily?

It had been four weeks already. Ari had a hard time adjusting to school; kids were a tough crowd, and Ari had never been one for fitting in. It seemed like every day, he came home with something broken or bruised.

Now, he sat on Matthias's couch, hunched over like a bent old lady, and seeming to bury his face into the shirt to hold on the ice pack.

Matthias sat down next to him, and turned on the tv. It was some crime show on, a grimy body laying half-covered by a sheet. "Look at that dude, he looks like he went through a sewer before dying. What a sick way to go, right?"

Ari said nothing.

Shifting on the couch, Matthias tried again. "And hey, that chick's hot. I'd do her. What about you?"

Still nothing.

He was going to have to be direct. Matthias mentally prepared himself, and then blurted, "You can't keep getting in fights. Ari, you'll be expelled, and I don't know if I can drive you to the next school over every morning. I got a job, you know."

"It's all about your job," Ari accused, voice muffled by the t-shirt. He hunched his shoulders some more, wishing he'd gotten past Matthias and gotten to his room when he had the chance.

"No, it is not all about my job. What you're doing at school isn't healthy, dude," Matthias said, and he had this feeling that Ari was a soppy animal, just looking for somewhere to be warm. He didn't know if it was something he was even capable of providing that, though, so he just helplessly said, "Whatever happened, it isn't your fault, you know. You don't have to punish yourself."

Ari gritted his teeth. Of course it was his fault. "Stupid, you have no idea what you're talking about."

And Matthias hadn't been there. He hadn't spent days at a time with Ari when things were normal. But he couldn't just let the kid take the blame. "It's the crazy bitch that told lies, Ari, not you."

"But I did it. I told her everything." Ari's voice hitched a bit, and he further buried his face into the t-shirt. He couldn't explain how mad he was at himself. How much he hated that he was here, and that he was the one who had put himself here.

Matthias put one of his hands on Ari's back. "You couldn't've known what she'd do, kid. How she'd twist everything."

The hand was warm, and for once, Ari didn't flinch away. He pulled the t-shirt and ice pack away from his face, saying, "I should have known. I'm eleven, I'm smart enough to know people are bad!"

Matthias gently pushed the t-shirt back against Ari's lazily bleeding nose. "Sometimes, you just can't know what people are going to do, Ari. You just have to try to ride the storm out."

Ari knew he was starting to cry, and it was stinging the inside of his nose. He shook his head. "It didn't even hurt that bad! Why did I have to tell someone? Why?"

It was a question Matthias couldn't answer easily. He rubbed Ari's back, wishing he could make it easier somehow for the kid.

A little over four weeks ago, Ari and Aage had gotten in a fight. Ari had decided that it was his privilege to stay up and watch tv all night; Aage had said it was a school night tomorrow. Things didn't usually get heated between them, but Ari exploded, and inspired a similar reaction in his brother.

As Aage gave up on getting him into bed, he threw his beer bottle without looking towards the recycling can. It hit Ari, who had been walking across the room, and gave him a black eye.

He was asked about it at school, and sent to the school counselor. He explained that his brother hit him with a beer bottle, but he insisted it was an accident. The counselor wanted more details on his life with his brother, and so they had come.

He told how Aage still gave him a smack on the hand when he did something stupid. He told how his brother would hug him too much sometimes, and how he was obviously too old for so much affection. He'd shared the time that had given him a spanking, only two weeks before that for cussing him out. Worst of all, he told how on cold nights, because the heating was faulty, Aage would let him share his bed with him.

The counselor drew conclusions of her own.

And now here Ari was, cut off from his brother while the man was under investigation. Matthias continued to rub his back, murmuring, "It'll turn out all right, you'll see. They'll have to know that Aage could never do something like that."

And maybe they would. But from where he was sitting, all Ari saw was a horrible future shuffled off on whoever would take him.

/AN/ I'm thinking about writing original fiction with similar themes. I know this one wasn't exactly something to write home about, but I hope it entertained you. This sort of plays off of the horror stories you hear in homeschooling circles about Children's Services taking the kids away for false reasons. Anyway, I might write more about this, maybe. It seems a little cruel to leave Ari in that situation. But, c'est la vie.


End file.
